


What Remains, and Where We Go From Here

by Pandolphin



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Another Episode
Genre: Gen, but that's what denial and writing better than canon is for, its been like 3 years and i'm still mad they did yuta dirty like that, its very drabble-y but that's you know writing it was an act of passion and anger, some crimes can never be forgiven but i will fix what i can
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 04:18:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15878382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandolphin/pseuds/Pandolphin
Summary: aka, "Yuta Asahina Lived Because Fuck Kodaka That's Why"





	What Remains, and Where We Go From Here

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this three years ago because i was so gd FURIOUS with drae and AUDACITY it had to tell me that this was the ONE TIME in this garbage planned mess of a series that someone DIDN'T survive an explosion at close range. my anger is valid to this day. turn on your location kodaka i just wanna talk.

The first thing Yuta sees on waking is white.

Whether it’s the white of the ceiling or the white from the lighting he can’t say. There’s a distant ache in his side that he can’t quite place, his mind too numb and foggy to focus clearly on the source. He wonders vaguely on where he is, since he can’t remember how he got here. Or where here is. He can’t remember a lot of things, actually.

On his right, there is a quiet gasp. Yuta blinks as he registers the sound and then, slowly, turns his head.

There is a woman by his bedside—and he realizes that he’s lying down, since she’s sitting up, so it’s the only thing that makes sense. She’s dressed in a white dress shirt and a long black tie, and her chocolate brown hair is pulled up into a ponytail. Her hands have flown up to her open mouth, and her blue eyes stare at him in shock, tears brimming in the corners.

Yuta blinks again. “…Nee-chan.”

Aoi Asahina’s chest rises and falls sporadically, and Yuta can hear the sound of a sob being silently held back. “Yuta…” She sounds so breathless, so tired, so relieved. “We didn’t—they said you might not wake up, that you might not make it, I—“

“Wha—huh? Nee-chan, what’re you…” He tries to sit up, on his left arm, but a searing pain shoots through him, and he slides back down onto his bed with a tired grunt. Aoi wastes no time and shoots up from her seat, holding him down by the shoulders.

“Yuta, don’t push it! You’re still recovering. You have to give it time to heal, okay?”

He winces. “Time to… give what time? What’re you talking about?”

There is silence. Aoi’s expression has gone from one of fretting and relief to a quiet panic, her face long since gone pale. A part of Yuta knows this is the right reaction she should have, but for the life of him, he can’t think of why. He watches his sister, watches her shoulders slump, watches her fall back into her chair, watches her eyes waver and lips tremble as she figures out what to say.

“Yuta… do you remember what happened? On the bridge?”

He blinks again. “On the… ah—“

There is still fog in his brain, but the memories flood back clear enough: Towa City, killer children, Komaru Naegi, Touko Fukawa, hundreds of animatronic bears, the bridge, the water, the bracelet, the _water_ —

Yuta’s eyes flare open, his stomach churns, and his face breaks out into a cold sweat. He swallows, loudly, and turns his head ever so slowly to his left, not knowing what to expect but steeling himself for whatever may come.

His left arm is no longer there. Or rather, it is there, but it stops shorter than it once did, near his elbow. The bandages and casting around what’s left of the arm make it hard to gauge exactly what’s left at all; experimentally, he tries to move it, and manages to, albeit with difficulty. A part of him supposes that’s a small blessing in and of itself. The rest of him barely takes notice.

Yuta lets out a shaky sigh, and his heart begins a rapid fire pounding in his chest, so hard and fast he fear it may burst. He thinks of how surprised he is that that didn’t already happen, and the panic only grows stronger. “N-Nee-chan, I—“

“It’s okay, Yuta!” His sister’s hands are on his face, pulling his gaze away from his arm. Her thumbs wipe at his cheeks, and Yuta realizes he had started to cry. “Just… just breathe, okay? Deep breaths, deeeep breaths, I promise it’s gonna be okay…”

And Yuta tries. He opens his mouth and gasps for air, trying hard to choke down his own tears and keep himself from crying out, and it takes minutes that seems like hours before he’s breathing normally again, but he looks into Aoi’s eyes, eyes still filled with worry but more filled with love, and slowly but surely his heart quiets again. Yuta’s sobs die down into shallow breaths, and Aoi brushes away stray strands of hair from his sweaty forehead with a smile.

“There… you’re okay, now.”

‘Okay’ is not quite the word Yuta thinks best describes what he is right now—but it is better than ‘dead’. “I…” He gasps again. “K-Komaru-chan, and Fukawa-san, nee-chan, are they—“

“Shh, calm down, Yuta. They’re both okay.” Aoi’s seated herself on his bed now, and her hands have moved away from Yuta’s face to hold his own, warm and tight. “They’re honestly a lot happier to hear _you_ got out okay. I can go get them, if you want, but I really think you should sleep a little more, first.”

“But what did—how did I get out of there?” The haze in his mind—from painkillers, Yuta assumes—is slowly starting to dissipate, and his thoughts and words are becoming clearer. “How am I _alive_?”

Aoi’s laughs, short, quick, and tired, and shakes her head. “Dumb luck, that’s how. Future Foundation agents found you floating out at sea unconscious, a few miles away from Towa City. They were trying to find a safe way in when they spotted you.”

“Uh… uh-huh.” Yuta nods slowly. He can vaguely remember hearing ‘Future Foundation’ before, and what it meant and what it entailed, but the meaning isn’t coming to him right now. It doesn’t matter right now, though, he supposes. “And I—was I already…?”

“…Mmm. There was no sign of it, and you’d lost a lot of blood already. You got some burns, too, on the side, but those’ll heal up in time.”

Yuta pauses, then slips his remaining hand out of Aoi’s grasp, and presses two fingers to his left side. True to her word, he feels the bandages wrapped around him, and more importantly, he feels the hurt, and hisses in pain.

“Yuta, don’t do that! What did I just say, you have to let it heal!”

“But it itcheeeees!”

“It’s supposed to do that!”

He frowns, his hand still hovering over the bandages. Aoi grabs it again.

“Leave it alone.”

Yuta sneers.

“How long have I been asleep?”

“About a week, or so? It was a pretty bad shock, you know, and like I said, you lost a lot of blood.”

“…am I gonna be stuck here much longer?”

It surprises Yuta how calm he sounds now, and how quickly he’s adapted to this sudden change. Sure, humans are hard to kill, and sure, they adapt incredibly easily, but that doesn’t make him feel any less strange about it. Though he supposes, if he had died at that moment, going out the way he did wouldn’t have been so bad. There’s some comfort in the fact that if he went out, it would have been with guns blazing, fighting to the bitter end—just like an Asahina would. Just like his sister would. It’s a weird, twisted sort of comfort, and Yuta knows that, but it’s a comfort nonetheless.

Then again, he also supposes, having his sister by his side is also pretty helpful.

“You’re gonna be here as long as you need to be.” Aoi speaks in that matter-of-fact-ly way a big sister would, the way that quells a displeased groan before it can even come out of Yuta’s mouth. “And then, as soon as we can, we’re gonna put you into rehab, and get you set up with a prosthetic.”

Yuta blinks, and glances back at the stump to his left, out of surprise now rather than panic. “I… you think we can do that?”

“I _know_ we can do that. If we can turn a megaphone into a hacking gun, and Togami into a kinda decent guy, then we can do anything.” Aoi giggles to herself. “Heehee, don’t tell Fukawa I said that.”

Yuta smiles back. “Heh. Sure thing.”

His sister looks at him, her expression softened from relief. She still looks incredibly tired, and the red in her eyes hasn’t gone completely unnoticed, but her smile holds so much joy and hope that Yuta wonders if he never saw her really smile before. A long minute of comforting silence passes before Aoi stands up again, straightening out her skirt and tie.

“Alright. I’m gonna go find a doctor and let ‘em know you woke up. We’re gonna need to get you more painkillers soon, and I’d bet your bandages could stand to get changed around now. Sit tight for a minute, okay?”

Yuta half-laughs, half-scoffs, a puff of air pushing past his lips. “Where am I gonna go?”

“Don’t be a smartass, you’d sneak out the first chance you saw if you could and you know it.” Aoi reaches over and pinches his cheek, and feebly, playfully, Yuta tries to push her away, and the two siblings dissolve into another quiet fit of laughter. Aoi’s pinch becomes softer, another brush of fingers against his hair, like it’s her making sure Yuta is really there. He can’t really blame her for that. “I’ll be right back. Don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone, okay?”

“Come on, nee-chan.” He grins again, and shifts his new stump a fraction of an inch. “How much more trouble could I be in?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.” Aoi draws her hand back, and instead of pinching him again leans forward, and kisses his forehead. “Love you, Yuta.”

Yuta’s cheeks turn the lightest bit pink from embarrassment and fraternal affection, but he smiles and returns the sentiment quietly. “Love you too, nee-chan.”


End file.
